These results indicate that immediate ingestion of CAF (6 mg·kg−1 body weight) can reduce the level of muscle fatigue and preserve leg power during the test, possibly resulting in increase in LAC. There was no increase in muscle damage, which indicates that immediate administration of (6 mg·kg−1 body weight) CAF is safe. Thus, nutritional interventions with CAF could help athletes withstand a greater physiological overload during high-intensity training sessions.

The results of this study would be applicable to sports and activities that require repetitive leg power.

What does this mean to you?

To properly follow the protocol used in the study, you need to ingest 6mg of caffeine per 1kg of body weight ( 2.72mg per 1lb of bodyweight)

There is approximately 100mg of caffeine in 1 cup of coffee

Which means that a 150lb trainee would need to drink 408mg or 4 cups of coffee before training….probably not the best idea if you don’t want to spend your workout in the bathroom.

As a result, you are going to need to purchase some caffeine pills if you want to take advantage of this caffeinated training boost.

And of course, not everyone’s GI tract is going to do well with all that caffeine.

BUT…if your gut is okay with a big dose of caffeine AND you’re looking to break through a training plateau, supplementing with caffeine immediately pre-workout could be exactly what you’re looking for.

NOTE: If you try this caffeine protocol, I would love to hear how it works for you. Feel free to contact me on Twitter or Facebook.

The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar giant with hundreds of companies telling thousands of half-truths to separate you and your money.

Which supplements should you buy?

In an attempt to look past some of the supplement companies B.S., I employed the power of big data (via Google Trends) to identify the top 10 weight loss supplements….as decided by the millions of people who use Google to research weight loss supplements.

No marketing B.S.

No fraudulent claims from supplement companies

No advertorials masquerading as honest information

Just pure data collected by the giant brains at Google.

Supplement #9

Green coffee bean extract is made from coffee beans that have not yet been roasted.

Research shows that the roasting process of coffee beans reduces the amount of the chemical chlorogenic acid found in the bean’s natural “green” state. Therefore, green coffee beans have a higher level of chlorogenic acid compared to regular, roasted coffee beans.

It is the chlorogenic acid in green coffee which is thought to have health benefits for weight loss.

In addition to these health benefits, there is some research indicating that green coffee bean extract may be helpful for:

How does Green Coffee Bean Extract promote weight loss?

The research is still in the early stages, but the commonly held belief is that green coffee bean extract promotes weight loss via the prevention of calories from carbohydrates being absorbed in the intestines.

In essence, green coffee bean extract is thought to work as a carb blocker...forcing the body to ignore carbs and allow them to leave the body as waste.

Green Coffee Bean Research

Want to learn more about green coffee bean extract & weight loss? Check out the science….

According to researchers at SUNY, it’s because caffeine makes you crave their product, buy their product and drink their product.

And that sounds a little shady, doesn’t it?

The Science

Researchers hypothesized that “adolescents who repeatedly consume a new and unfamiliar drink that contains caffeine would like that beverage more over time, but that adolescents who drank an unfamiliar beverage without caffeine would show no change in their preference.”

Starting May 3, Starbucks is finally getting serious about their commitment to America’s obesity epidemic.

After realizing that their 700 calorie Venti Iced Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha wasn’t enough to push their customers into a higher obesity bracket, Starbucks executives committed an unprecedented amount of time and money into an attempt to create an even larger receptacle for their iced beverages.

And luckily for America’s gastric bypass surgeons, all of that time and money has paid off….with the creation of the new Starbucks Trenta.

The Trenta weighs in at a staggering 31 ounces

Is unfortunately being made available only for iced coffee, iced tea and iced tea lemonade drinks

Raises the calorie count of the Iced peppermint White Chocolate Mocha from 700 up to 904

Virtually ensuring that Starbucks will finally be able to challenge McDonalds for the title of Biggest Culinary Contribution to Worldwide Obesity.

Yay.

And just in case you can’t properly imagine what 31 ounces of iced coffee looks like, the fine folks over at the National Post have prepared the following infographic.

The Trenta is just slightly larger than the size of the average adult human stomach.

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But have no fear….after 3 or 4 Trentas, your stomach will stretch out to accomodate the increased volume.

Yay again.

.

Note – Some of you may find it a tad ironic that while writing this post, I have been sitting in a Starbucks drinking a mug of Starbucks coffee (Verona to be exact). To be clear, I love Starbucks coffee. I love the baristas at my local Starbucks (Bloor & Bathurst). I just wish they would stick to making coffee and leave the belly-busting dessert drinks to McDonalds and Dairy Queen.

Conclusion

Over the past few months, I have been cutting back on my consumption of coffee/caffeine as I found that my desire for coffee was morphing from a want into a need…..and I have no intention of becoming any more addicted to Starbucks than I already am.

However, for days when I want to perform at my best, chewing on some caffeinated gum seems to be a pretty harmless way to boost performance by 5%.

For years & years, we have been told that caffeinated beverages (coffee, tea, etc) are diuretics and that they dehydrate us and that they do not count towards those magic 8 glasses of water we are all supposed to drink each and every day.

And for years & years, I thought this was a colossal line of B.S.

And I was right.

According to this study & that study, there is no valid scientific support for the suggestion that consumption of caffeine-containing beverages as part of a normal lifestyle leads to fluid loss in excess of the volume ingested or is associated with poor hydration status.

Therefore, there would appear to be no clear basis for refraining from caffeine containing drinks in situations where fluid balance might be compromised.

So, the next time someone tells you that you shouldn’t drink coffee because it will dry you up like a California Raisin, send them over to Health Habits for a little book learnin’.

And once again, like those guys on the Discovery Channel, I declare this nutrition myth…BUSTED

For decades, endurance athletes have relied on caffeine as a performance aid. They claimed that a pre-workout cup of coffee helped them to push themselves harder and for longer periods of time.

And along the way, science has backed up that belief:

In 1979, scientists found that caffeine helped cyclists improve their performance by 7% during a 2 hour workout.

In 1991, cyclists dosed with 9mg of caffeine per kg of bodyweight were able to increase their endurance by 51%

In 1995, cyclists performing high intensity circuits were able to improve their endurance by 29% with a dose of 5.5mg of caffeine per kg of body mass.

Pretty good, right? The only problem is that no one really knew why caffeine improved athletic performance…until now.

Researcher (and cycling geek) Dr. Robert Motl has spent the last 7 years considering the relationship between physical activity and caffeine. Today, he has a much better understanding of why that cuppa Joe he used to consume before distance training and competing enhanced his cycling ability.

Early in his research, he became aware that “caffeine works on the adenosine neuromodulatory system in the brain and spinal cord, and this system is heavily involved in nociception and pain processing.”

Since Motl knew caffeine blocks adenosine from working, he speculated that it could reduce pain.

A number of studies by Dr. Motl support that conclusion, including investigations considering such variables as exercise intensity, dose of caffeine, anxiety sensitivity and gender.

The good doctors latest study “looks at the effects of caffeine on muscle pain during high-intensity exercise as a function of habitual caffeine use,” he said. “No one has examined that before”.

And what did they find?

Caffeine reduces pain during exercise.

Less pain means you can work harder.

Less pain means you can work longer.

The Science

The study’s 25 participants were fit, college-aged males divided into two distinct groups:

An hour prior to each session, cyclists – who had been instructed not to consume caffeine during the prior 24-hour period – were given a pill.

On one occasion, it contained a dose of caffeine measuring 5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (equivalent to two to three cups of coffee); the other time, they received a placebo.

During both exercise periods, subjects’ perceptions of quadriceps muscle pain was recorded at regular intervals, along with data on oxygen consumption, heart rate and work rate.

The Results

Obviously the most important result was that caffeine reduced the pain of intense physical activity. But Dr. Motl also found that when it came to the reduction of pain, “caffeine tolerance doesn’t matter”. Caffeine-junkies and the herbal tea drinkers received the same pain reducing benefit from their little caffeine pill.

So, what now?

Dr. Motl wants to see what effect caffeine’s pain-reducing abilities has on sport performance.

“We’ve shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably, consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across different people, different characteristics. But does that reduction in pain translate into an improvement in sport performance?”

Interesting question for sure, but I am way to impatient to wait for science to catch up to real life. If you’re like me, check out this list of caffeine based beverages and let’s get physical.

Study # 1

In fact, the research showed that athletes who consumed carbohydrates and drank caffeine had 66 per cent more glycogen in their muscles four hours after working out, versus athletes who consumed carbohydrates alone.

This is important because to get the most from your workouts, you need to re-fuel your muscles as soon as possible. A proper re-fuel will cause your body to shift from it’s post-workout catabolic state to an anabolic state toot sweet.

Simply put, you will recover faster, feel less post exercise pain (still debatable, but anecdotal evidence leads me to believe this to be true), get stronger, faster, have more endurance and lose fat faster.

All good stuff.

So take a shot of espresso with your post workout protein shake.

Okay, this is weird. As I was writing this post, I was also surfing and came upon this – Starbucks new Vivanno Nourishing Blends. I haven’t had one, but this is exactly what the Aussie researchers are describing. Carbs, protein & caffeine.

I eat my All-Bran twigs and berries cereal so that I don’t get colon cancer and now these science geeks are telling me that unless I cut out my morning cup o’ joe, my blood sugar is going to jump sky-high, followed by my insulin levels.

Great, the next thing you’re going to tell me is that this is going to make me insulin resistant and eventually type 2 diabetic.

Well, research does show that “whether you’re a healthy individual, obese or a Type 2 diabetic, when you ingest caffeine and then follow that with some food that’s carbohydrate-based, for a prolonged period of time — certainly six hours at least — your body becomes insulin resistant.”

“It’s the caffeine in the coffee that is altering your body’s sugar response,” Prof. Graham (the lead researcher) says. “It makes us resistant to insulin, which in turn makes our blood-sugar levels go higher.”

So what am I supposed to do now?

According to Prof. Graham, for healthy people, the implication is “no big deal.” “If my glucose goes a bit higher and I’m over it in a couple of hours, I’m happy and I’ve had my coffee.” In fact, recent research shows “very clearly” that heavy coffee drinking decreases the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Coffee contains many positive biological compounds, including antioxidants, and decreases the risk for diseases of the gut.

Not so for those individuals who are obese, sedentary and don’t exercise. It’s likely that those people are already insulin resistant.

So, what should you do?

If you are not at risk, enjoy your java. However, if you fit the ‘at risk’ profile, try switching to water distilled decaf coffee.” Or, eat your cereal before your coffee. Or, dump the cereal altogether and switch to a Mediterranean or Paleo way of eating.

Conclusion

These two studies seem to contradict themselves.

Not really.

In study # 1, the researchers are trying to increase levels of blood sugar and insulin. This effect literally drives the sugar into your muscles. Your muscles have been depleted by your workout (At least they should be; if not, workout harder) and they are virtually screaming to be fed. The sugar will go straight to your muscles where it will go about fueling your muscles re-building process.

In study # 2, you have no need for a giant spike in blood sugar and insulin. You just woke up and your body is not screaming for fuel.

But don’t think I am telling you to skip breakfast. Like my mom always said, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” (weird – I quoted my mom)

You have a long day ahead of you, so a nice steady stream of low glycemic carbs is the way to go. No sugar spikes you Coca-Cola junkies.

So, in conclusion, you want to keep you blood sugar in check all day long, except for post workout.

Got it?

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